Wickaninnish Community School SD#70 Pacific Rim

I. General Information

School Name: Wickaninnish Community School

School District: SD#70 Pacific Rim

Inquiry Team Members: bgrigg@sd70.bc.ca
smcauley@sd70.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: dstone@sd70.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)

Curricular Areas Addressed: Mathematics / Numeracy

Focus Addressed: Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Flexible learning, Growth mindset, Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Using math bags and buddy classes to increase number sense and numeration skills.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: When scanning, we realized that many students had a fixed mindset around their numeracy ability. Teachers were looking for ways to engage students. Mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills in critical thinking were lagging.

Focus: We wanted to see more engagement in numeracy and a better sense of efficacy around numeracy skills, along with increasing a growth mindset around how numeracy skills are built and building opportunities to practice critical thinking and problem solving.

Hunch: If we used math games, bags and “buddies”, students would be more engaged in this numeracy play and would be able to build skills that were transferable.

New Professional Learning:

  • Carole Fullerton workshops as a primary team
  • Working with our numeracy school lead, as well as our district lead
  • Investigating BCAMP in Whistler, which had math openers with Dan Finkle and more workshops with Carole Fullerton
  • Workshops through data-based assessment with Peter L. and thinking classrooms

Taking Action:

  • Put Numeracy bags in each classroom
  • Curated math openers and games for each grade level that had multiple entry points
  • Purchased new math resources and teacher resources to help support professional development of staff
  • Did a lot of co-teaching to help develop skills
  • Built a survey to measure student efficacy around numeracy

Checking: This was a startup year. We made great grounds forward in being more open-minded as a staff to learning about numeracy. Started to see some changes in attitudes of students to use games to build skills. We used more manipulatives and visuals to teach and engage students in math problem solving and critical skills. We got a baseline for where staff and students were in their learning and feelings towards math.

Reflections/Advice: Next year we are going to administer our numeracy survey with all students, and we will continue to build on our work with Carole Fullerton while using her assessments for district assessments. We are going to use some professional development time, and staff meeting time, to continue moving forward in a good way. We will continue to work with new staff, so that the baseline of understanding is the same.